The VP gig started off ok but then went south and eventually they bought him out. Note this is not a startup but an established company with some management issues. He decided to try freelance marketing/consulting for a while to spend more time with his family. But by now he's ready for steady income again.

25% would be dependent on everything - which is why gave such a wide range. I don't have kids' tuition to think about so my salary needs are pretty low. I'd err on the side of happiness.

I think you know deep down if this job feels like a positive step.

Was he a VP of engineering or marketing or something else? At least in software development, I can't imagine anyone becoming all that much less employable after a failure of this kind - at worst the issue may be that one's ego may become too big to accept a lesser role. Then again, the job market's been pretty good for several years in a row so I may not have the best perspective on something like this.

This is for someone else's situation (not even something imminent, I've been helping him brainstorm), which also made me curious about how you guys feel about something like this.

And let's reverse the situation a bit - if you're getting paid a lot, say a bit above what you think may be "market" but aren't that happy and you're not otherwise at a great company, how much of a paycut (and a corresponding hit to title and relative seniority, etc) would you take to get to a top firm in your field that's also known to be an objectively great place to work?

Not engineering. Normal companies don't have VPs of engineering. This was a company that made professional lighting equipment. VP of sales or marketing or something.

It's hard to put a price on workplace happiness. If I'm not happy I'm looking elsewhere until I find something else.

I've been listening to a lot of programming podcasts - javascript, React, and Python and there's a LOT of talk about typing. Is it really that big a deal or do people just not enough to talk about? Maybe it's that I was almost always programming by myself or with one or two people, but I always knew what type (or "type") my variables were. In PHP maybe it was convenient that you could go:

instead of:

but, whatever. What am I missing? Just weird bugs that come up when 40 people are working on the same code?

We've had the type discussion many times in here if you feel like searching for it, but I'm sure there are people willing to continue it if not.

OH MY GOD IS THAT GRUE'S MUSIC??

http://www.bash.org/?23601

Pros/cons of typescript in order of magnitude imo:

Pros:
1) IDE auto-code-completion - saves a lot of time.
2) Stuff like a default properties object is easy to inspect anywhere instead of digging through code.
3) Catches run time errors at compile time (I'm kinda skeptical that most of these wouldn't also be caught with a good linter).

Cons:
1) Compile step slows things down.
2) Code is more bloated.
3) Sometimes you have to jump through hoops to satisfy a 3rd party library that's expecting a certain kind of object

I think the biggest pro is that when you're working on a codebase with more than one or two people you have some confidence that you aren't breaking stuff before deployment.

I went to a react conference this weekend, and have been paying attention a lot to the overall "meta" of javascript development, and type systems are coming to everything, 100%. No point in holding out at this point even if you don't believe in it.

Given a full time position that pays 100, what would you expect a part time position doing the same work to pay? Assume that the only difference is in the amount of hours you are expected to work.

I think it still probably depends on the benefits and other factors. If you have some amazing benefit package that is the same between full-time and part-time the per-hour cost of those benefits is a lot higher on the part-time role.

I guess I'd say that a part-time position should pay roughly the same when you consider the whole compensation package. Maybe slightly less per-hour if its being driven by the employee and slightly more if its being driven by the employer.

Edit: I have no experience here, just my first reaction.

I've been having a bit of a debate with a contact on Slack. It is in regards to how you should handle initial contact when networking on LinkedIn. Take this simple example (obviously with an existing contact but should get the idea). Which approach would you prefer?

direct approach

indirect approach

His is the direct approach. Mine includes a call to action. I think most ppl, given the option, will respond better to someone who is asking them what they want to do vs someone telling them what they will do.

I feel [whether right or wrong] that most ppl when you ask them a question feel obligated to answer. It's kinda rude imo to ignore someone when they ask a question. That's my theory anyway. What do you guys think?

Stuff like that matters at scale when you are dealing with something like an entire team for business development but won't make much of a difference in sending out a handful of messages.

That said the direct approach is correct.

welp after 19 hours of flying I arrive in bangalore on the one day you can't get a drink -_-

not optional

Definitely agree. Related, the optimal format for arranging a meeting time asynchronously is clearly:

A: I am available to meet at times X, Y, Z [with nice distribution of reasonable times], do any of those work for you?

B: Yes, X works for me. [OR]. Unfortunately, I can't make any of those times. I am available A, B, or C. Do any of those work for you?

A: See you at X.


And for ****s sake, if you're B never do any of:

B: Excited to meet! [With no reference to date/time].
B: I might be able to make X work.
B: Yeah, any of those times are fine with me.
B: Sorry, I can't make those work.
B: I can do Q.

[Assuming that as B you actually want to have said meeting and/or maintain a good relationship with A].

If you have a few React projects under development on your local machine do create a new project in each directory, duplicating like 100megs in each node_modules folder or what? On a Unix machine you could do symbolic links or something I guess. What about a Windows machine?

Duplicate the node_modules folders. But delete them when the projects go dormant.

Do you guys ever have days where you’re extremely tired and your brain isnt working at 100%, or even 50%?

I mean I know we all have those but I’ve had a few lately and it just destroys my productivity. I know any work I do will just have a ****load of problems that will create more work for me later so I tend to do nothing or organize/administrative stuff that doesnt have a large brain load.

Strats? Caffeine doesn’t work after a point.

Yeah, that was today. :P

I don't really have a strategy. I try to do some tasks that are productive but require less focus and intensity, and if that fails I read 2+2 threads and hope tomorrow is a bit better, and it usually is.

I generally try and do some collaborative stuff like talking with someone over their feature. If I'm not feeling it I get 100 times worse forcing it in front of my screen

I do unit tests

For me the cause of that would almost always be lack of sleep and the cure would be sleep. Even a ten minute nap can be pretty effective.

Those are called hangovers. Just don't drink as much during the week and you'll be fine.

In all seriousness though, the only time I felt like that was after a night of drinking but I'm still a young lad so maybe it's an age thing.